Monitor flashing black oftenly.

[Naraus]

Odyssey Neo G7 43" G70NC UHD 144Hz Gaming Monitor

LS43CG700NEXXY

The monitor is unusable with "Game mode / HDR" enabled as the screen flashes black every 10 seconds when opening up "windows display settings", and flashes black every 2-4 seconds when YouTube or Twitch is playing.

This is happening right out of the box, and I mean exactly that, brought brand new and happening in less than 10 minutes of first using it.

And after updating both software and firmware and my 4090 drivers it is still having the same issue.

However when turning off my other monitor the Samsung Odyssey no longer flashes black with "Game mode" enabled.

First conclusion would be that maybe it's a problem with my Graphics Card?

Maybe it can't handle two Monitors?

A 1440p ultrawide at 144hz and 4k at 120hz

(For whatever reason Windows is only allowing the monitor to be set at a max of 120hz despite it being advertised at 144hz.)

Reduced both to 60hz each and no change in the odyssey flashing black.

My Graphics card being the weak link is off the table: It's an Asus Strix 4090 OC Edition.

Not only that; after an OC scanner in GPU Tweak 3 it overclocked the card to 3,285 Mhz maxing out at 81 degrees, 531 watts, and idles at 2-4 degrees above ambient with no fans spinning.

Regardless it's not OC'd atm and is just running at stock values.

My 4090 is a golden sample paired with an i9 14900KF, it can handle "two monitors."

From what I've read online with other odyssey monitors it seems to be a common issue across several odyssey models over the past 4 years. 

People have suggested it's a heating issue (my room was 17 degrees ambient with the aircon 2 meters behind it); another guy had two odyssey monitors one of which was fine and their second one constantly flashing black; another owner got their monitor replaced and their replacement still flashed black but not as often.

Samsung has suggested it could be a problem with the cable: the cable is brand new out of the box less than 24 hours ago, regardless I swapped cables with my other monitor and no change, I also have 3 other 1.4 DP cables.

Another note in the 3 hours I spent messing with the settings yesterday, when changing from 59hz to either 60hz, 119hz, or 120hz, the colours become oversaturated despite retaining the same profile in "Expert Settings", why is it that the monitors colour output completely changes when going above 59hz? Which feature is being enabled at 60hz and above?

I haven't even tested a game on it, of which thus far I am not looking forward to doing after work today; over what I experienced last night and recently stumbled upon people mentioning flickering issues when gaming with odyssey monitors.

Do I really have to spend the next month getting this monitor replaced a dozen times before I win the "Samsung Odyssey lottery" that allows me to use "Game Mode" with a secondary monitor connected to my 4090?

[Samsung_Moderator · Accepted solution]

Thank you so much for reaching out! This forum is for the support of US products and customers. We do not have the ability to support models outside of the US. There are differences between the US and International firmware, which we do not have access to. Since your product was purchased outside of the US, please visit the link below for support in your area. https://www.samsung.com/us/common/visitlocationsite.html

[Naraus]

Solution: Use either DP 2.1 or HDMI 2.1, despite the monitor and or GPU not being rated for DP 2.1 it will fix the issue.

Because various Odyssey models over the past 4 years tend to overload DP 1.4 cables.

This was my issue:

https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Monitors-and-Memory/Monitor-flashing-black-oftenly/m-p/2853332#M...

Instead I had a "Samsung staff member" flag the post as solved by directing me elsewhere.

And predictably they went on about "firmware" despite me updating it because the monitor has built in Tizen OS and Wifi which let's the monitor connect to the internet and update it's own software and firmware on its own (all I do is go into the menu and click on update). No Samsung staff member is trained to understand that.

Predictably the place I got directed to the staff their told me to RMA.

No amount of RMA would have resolved the issue as I found out the cause.

I came here to get solutions from the community not have a staff member mark my post as locked and solved.

So guess what, I had to solve the issue myself and now I understand how ugly it really is and why every Samsung staff member will always default to RMA.

Purchased an HDMI 2.1 cable and 3 more DP 1.4 cables each from different brands, each supporting 8K at 60hz.

The HDMI 2.1 cable worked with no issues, however all 3 brand new DP 1.4 cables exhibited the same black screen issues when operating in "Game mode" at 4k-60hz, and 4k-120hz.

And that's when I found a solution to the issue, as in a lot of forums talking about other Odyssey models "Playstation" users stated that reducing the bandwidth output by 50% to their display ports fixed the issue, and it's only an issue if a Samsung monitor is connected to it.

So I purchased the next generation DP 2.1 cable and wow look at that, problem resolved.

(Yes I still have my old monitor and it has no issues running on any of the new DP 1.4 cables)

What's ugly about this is that the monitor is only rated for DP 1.4 and my RTX 4090 is only rated for DP 1.4, as such using a DP 2.1 cable shouldn't resolve the issue.

Only high end AMD GPUs have DP 2.1 support.

Something in various Odyssey models for the past 4 years are requesting more data than what DP 1.4 cables are capable of delivering and as such overloading them.

So if anyone else has an issue with an Odyssey monitor just ditch the DP 1.4 cable it comes with and purchase either an HDMI 2.1 cable or DP 2.1 cable.